The first step in Apple’s official iCloud rollout happened today, with the release of iTunes 10.5. After months of beta releases getting developers set for Apple’s cord-cutting update, this is the first public release of iTunes that plays nicely with Apple’s cloud capabilities.

This is a necessary prelude to tomorrow’s official release of iOS 5, which will bring iCloud to millions of iOS devices worldwide. In case you’ve been marooned on a deserted island for the last four months, iCloud is Apple’s new feature that allows wireless background syncing on everything from Macs to iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches (PCs might even get in on some photo-syncing love).

The features that Apple is highlighting in this edition of iTunes relate more to iCloud in general than they do to this particular iTunes software, but it’s related nonetheless. Automatic downloads of purchases across multiple devices, purchase history, and iTunes Match are all promoted as “what’s new” in iTunes 10.5.

While Apple’s decade-old “music player” (and so much more) isn’t likely to completely vanish anytime soon, much of what iCloud does is to eliminate the need for iTunes. With iPhones and iPads soon able to be activated wirelessly, with entire music collections downloaded from iTunes Match, data backed up (and stored) in the cloud, and even full iOS software updates pushed OTA, iTunes’ place in the Apple hierarchy might be shrinking soon.

iTunes 10.5 can be downloaded from the link below, or via software update.

Stay tuned to Geek.com for full coverage of tomorrow’s iOS 5/iCloud launch, along with Friday’s iPhone 4S release.